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Heather Wastie writes poems, songs & monologues. This blog began with her oral history project with people who worked in the carpet industry in Kidderminster. Her carpet industry related pieces appear on this blog and in her book http://blackpear.net/authors-and-books/heather-wastie/

Monthly Archives: April 2015

On Friday 1st May, Worcestershire Poet Laureate, Fergus McGonigal and I will present How Wars Start at Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

In the middle of last year, I applied for a Kidderminster Arts Festival ‘small-scale commission’ to create an interactive performance poetry piece called How Do Wars Start? Having been successful, I felt it would be a better piece if I created it with another poet and immediately thought of Fergus. I’m a great admirer of his work and had a feeling creative sparks would fly in unexpected directions if we got together. He said yes, and we split the fee between us. What an excellent decision it turned out to be!

Influenced by Fergus’s approach to language and performance, I experienced a creative surge as I grappled with the challenge of identifying how wars start. Not the waging of war or the aftermath etc; how they actually begin. We sat one day in my garden brainstorming ideas then went our separate ways to each write 10 minutes of material. Our show needed to be entertaining, funny and visual. I collected ideas on our Facebook page, watched some wonderful street theatre in Kidderminster, assembled inexpensive props – a bit of old carpet, a plastic plant pot, a hand-puppet, balloons.

The pieces we had written slotted together easily and we both thoroughly enjoyed the whole process culminating in a day of performances in Kidderminster town centre, one to a captive and appreciative audience in the library and two in public thoroughfares where passersby were rather bemused.

For Cheltenham, we’ve written lots of new material to make an hour-long show, 9.00-10.00pm in the Everyman Other Space Studio Theatre, 7-10 Regent Street, Cheltenham GL50 1HQ. Tickets are £7 / £4 . Here’s a taster. See our Facebook page for more https:/www.facebook.com/how.do.wars.start. Hope to see you on May 1st!